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Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Carolina.
Between 1718 and 2024, more than 680 people have been executed in South Carolina.[1] After the nationwide capital punishment ban was overturned in 1976, South Carolina has executed 45 people.[2]
Between 2011 and 2024, no one has been executed in the state due to pharmaceutical companies not wanting to sell the drugs needed for lethal injections. Lethal injection has been the legalized primary form of execution since 1995. The passage of Act 43 of 2021 allowed executions to resume with the electric chair as the primary form of execution.[3] In March 2022, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced they were ready to carry out executions by firing squad. Inmates will now have the choice to be executed via electrocution or firing squad; with electrocution being the primary method.[4]
On July 31, 2024, the Supreme Court of South Carolina ruled that the death penalty was legal, including the execution methods of electrocution and firing squad, both of which were approved by a majority of the judges, which paved the way for the potential resumption of executions. A total of 30 inmates remained on death row in South Carolina as of November 2024.[5]
13 years after the state's last execution, the state resumed executions by carrying out the death sentence of convicted killer Freddie Eugene Owens on September 20, 2024.[6][7]
When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is not passed by the judge. The sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous.
In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial).[8]
The governor has the power of clemency with respect to death sentences.[9]
The methods of execution are lethal injection, electrocution, and firing squad.[10][11]
On January 30, 2019, South Carolina's Senate voted 26–13 in favor of a revived proposal to bring back the electric chair and add firing squads to its execution options.[12][13] On May 14, 2021, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed a bill into law which brought back the electric chair as the default method of execution (in the event lethal injection was unavailable) and added the firing squad (if the offender requests it) to the list of execution options. This made South Carolina the first state to use a method other than lethal injection as its primary execution method since 2009, when Nebraska switched over to that method, also from electrocution. South Carolina has not performed executions in over a decade, and its lethal injection drugs expired in 2013. Pharmaceutical companies have since refused to sell drugs for lethal injection.[14][15][16] The law is Act 43 of 2021.
Murder with one of the following aggravating circumstances is the only crime punishable by death in South Carolina:[17]
- The murder was committed while in the commission of the following crimes or acts: criminal sexual conduct in any degree, kidnapping, trafficking in persons, burglary in any degree, robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, larceny with use of a deadly weapon, killing by poison, drug trafficking, physical torture, dismemberment of a person, or arson in the first degree.
- The murder was committed by a person with a prior conviction for murder.
- The offender by his act of murder knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person in a public place by means of a weapon or device which normally would be hazardous to the lives of more than one person.
- The offender committed the murder for himself or another for the purpose of receiving money or a thing of monetary value.
- The murder of a judicial officer, former judicial officer, solicitor, former solicitor, or other officer of the court during or because of the exercise of his official duty.
- The offender caused or directed another to commit murder or committed murder as an agent or employee of another person.
- The murder of a federal, state, or local law enforcement officer or former federal, state, or local law enforcement officer, peace officer or former peace officer, corrections officer or former corrections officer, including a county or municipal corrections officer or a former county or municipal corrections officer, a county or municipal detention facility employee or former county or municipal detention facility employee, or fireman or former fireman during or because of the performance of his official duties.
- The murder of a family member of an official listed in subitems (5) and (7) above with the intent to impede or retaliate against the official. "Family member" means a spouse, parent, brother, sister, child, or person to whom the official stands in the place of a parent or a person living in the official's household and related to him by blood or marriage.
- Two or more persons were murdered by the defendant by one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct.
- The murder of a child eleven years of age or under.
- The murder of a witness or potential witness committed at any time during the criminal process for the purpose of impeding or deterring prosecution of any crime.
- The murder was committed by a person deemed a sexually violent predator pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 48, Title 44, or a person deemed a sexually violent predator who is released pursuant to Section 44-48-120.
South Carolina also provides for the death penalty for criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11 if the offender was a repeat offender, but under Kennedy v. Louisiana, it must involve the death of the minor (which is already a capital crime in South Carolina).[8]
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